January
The New Year wakens like a peevish child
In Winter‘s chamber. Nature, his dear nurse,
Rocks him upon a rolling cradle-cloud,
While the cold winds lift up their voices loud,
Filling the underworld with strainings wild, -
A tempest lullaby! In heaps up-piled
The white snow fills the land, a drapery chaste,
On mead productive, moor, and rocky waste,
Echoes the flail from the old barn of thatch,
The wild duck shelters in the frozen fen,
The redbreast hops upon the wooden latch,
And King Frost lords it o‘er the icy glen.
Heap up another log. How sad to be
Abroad in such a gale on land or sea!
From Sonnets to the months, by John Harris
